Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) (42 page)

Twenty minutes more.

George ducked around a young couple dragging a screaming toddler, found herself a quiet spot in a bookstore that opened into the airport waiting room. She felt her full skirt settling around her legs as she stopped moving. Nearby, a businessman glanced away from the book display on the wall and let his eyes travel appreciatively over her feminine curves.

Lyle had never seen her in a skirt. Would he like it? Would he notice that the blue matched her eyes?

Would he be happy to see her?

He’d been so silent the morning she had left. Robyn had cried, throwing herself into George’s arms, while Lyle stood rigidly behind his daughter, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes searching the sky for the helicopter they could already hear.

The last minutes had passed so quickly. The big machine landed on the pad, the doors were thrown open and a mailbag thrown out. Russ had pulled her arm and she’d been suddenly halfway up the steps into the chopper, looking back and finding Lyle walking away with the man who had gotten off the helicopter, moving quickly towards where Robyn was sitting in the trailer of the tractor waiting for him. He was carrying the mail bag and he didn’t look back.

Look back
, she’d pleaded silently, but he hadn’t heard. As if he wanted her to go. Russ sat beside her, belted her in when her own fingers fumbled, then handed her a small package that lay limp in her hands.

“It’s from Lyle,” he’d said curtly, before moving forward to talk to the pilot.

She’d fumbled with the flap of the big envelope. Fifty dollars. His credit card. A cassette tape with her name written on the label. A slip of paper with his mailing address on it, but not another word.

She hadn’t let herself cry, but she knew tears would come the moment she was alone. They’d landed at the coast guard base in Prince Rupert. Someone had called a taxi and Russ had ushered her into the back seat, himself in the front. Before leaving the base, Russ had made a phone call and determined that Dorothy was once again in hospital, this time in labor.

“I’ll get you settled in a hotel first,” he’d muttered as they got into the taxi.

“I’m fine,” she’d protested, feeling his disapproval and not knowing just what Lyle might have said to him, or what he was thinking of her.

“Lyle said to look after you,” he’d insisted stubbornly.

“I don’t need looking after.” She had to be alone. She leaned forward and told the taxi driver, “The hospital first, please. Then— could you recommend a central hotel? In walking distance to everything?”

“The Rupert Hotel,” the driver said. Russ said, “The Crest.”

“The Rupert then,” said George. Russ shrugged and had the sense to let her have her way.

George would have liked to see Dorothy, to see the baby through the nursery windows after it was born. Seeing the baby would have made her feel that she was part of Lyle’s family. Why was she leaving, when everything inside her crying for her to stay? This morning, if he had asked her to stay, she thought she might have said yes.

She checked into the hotel. Her room had a window on the ocean. She stared out, seeing the water and wondering what Lyle would be doing now. The relief lightkeeper had stepped off the helicopter as she and Russ got on. He and Lyle would probably be talking, going over the temporary man’s duties. If she had stayed, they could have done more songs. At night, when Robyn went to sleep, she and Lyle could go downstairs and close the door on the world.

She thought about the seaplane companies she knew were based here. She could charter a plane— would they take Lyle’s credit card? In a couple of hours she could be back on Green Island. She hadn’t realized that walking away from Lyle would hurt so much. She’d told herself that it was a sexual thing, that she could have an affair with him and be free of it. Last night she’d tried to lose herself in his arms. He hadn’t let her, had insisted she see the possible consequences of their passion.

Babies. Love. He hadn’t said that he loved her, but she had seen it in his eyes. She was almost certain that he did. He wanted her to come back, yet she was afraid of losing herself in his strength, terrified she wouldn’t be able to be what he wanted of her. She was almost positive she couldn’t live in a place like that, shut off from the world, immobilized on an isolated island.

She loved him.

No!

When had that happened?

It couldn’t work. She’d never been able to be what Scott wanted. It would be the same with Lyle. He wanted her to stay with him, to embrace his lighthouse life along with himself and Robyn.

She turned away from the window, picked up the telephone.

Jenny’s voice sounded warm over the line, “Yes, of course I’ll accept the charges. George, are you all right? Where are you calling from?”

“Prince Rupert. And I’m fine.” She closed her eyes and pictured Jenny, surrounded with video tape cartridges, Jake somewhere behind her getting excited over the newest video.

“When the operator said you were calling collect, I thought something must be wrong.” Jenny’s laughter came clearly as she asked, “Surely you didn’t forget to pay the bill on your calling card? Did they cut you off?” It was the sort of thing George might do, forgetting to pay because she was busy getting into an adventure somewhere.

“I lost the card,” George admitted. “I lost
Lady Harriet
.”

“What?” Jenny squealed. “What did you say?”

“I sank her. I’m okay, but
Lady Harriet
is wrecked on a rock near Green Island lighthouse.”

George heard Jake’s voice in the background, then Jenny asking quietly, “George, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Really, Jenny. I’ve just gotta get my paperwork straightened out. I’ve lost my wallet and my checkbook.”

“I’ll wire you a plane ticket,” her cousin said quickly. “Prince Rupert? You can pick it up at the travel agent there.”

“No, don’t. I don’t need it.”

She was going to use Lyle’s credit card. She wanted the symbolic intimacy of using his card.

Jenny said something low-voiced to Jake, then, “George, please don’t disappear on me. I’m worried about you.”

Always running away, Lyle had accused her. Never letting the people who loved her get close. Where was she going?

“George, where are you going? Can you salvage the boat?”

“No,” she’d answered absently. “I’m coming to you, if you can put me up for a while.”

The next day she’d tried to spot Green Island from the sky as the jet was climbing. She lost her bearings as the jet circled and couldn’t tell if the island she fixed on was Green or not.

In Vancouver, she managed to fill the better part of four days with dashing around. It was almost like the days after Scott’s death, when she’d torn into desperate activity, refusing to think.

She borrowed Jenny’s car and took the ferry to Victoria to see her insurance agent. He glared at her and asked a lot of questions, informed her that this claim would send her rates sky high if she ever tried to insure a boat again.

In Vancouver, her bank. New checks applied for, new banking card issued on the spot. She was once more connected to the convenience of modern banking, able to get money anywhere she could find a BMO banking machine. New driver’s license. New Mastercard coming in a couple of weeks.

She went shopping. She bought a soft cuddly bear for Robyn. The bear had a big bib that bore the words
I love you
. She also bought some Love’s Baby Soft perfume and bubble bath. She used Lyle’s card for the bear, her own money for the perfume. She packaged them with Lyle’s credit card and a check for fifty dollars, and sent the whole thing to him by registered mail.

She put a letter to Robyn in with the package, giving Jenny’s house as her return address. She didn’t write to Lyle. She didn’t know what to say to him. She wasn’t ready to come to terms with Lyle yet. She bought a classic Walkman for herself and listened to the tape Russ had given her from Lyle. She played it for Jenny and Jake one evening.

“Very professional,” Jake said, sitting up with that alert look she’d seen on his face when he was caught up in an exciting project.

Jenny was watching him, half-smiling. “You said he was the lightkeeper? What’s his name? What does he look like?”

“Lyle. Lyle Stevens.” She thought of the films Jake and Jenny had done and she added, “He’s very good looking. Very photogenic, I would imagine.”

Then she moved quickly, because she could see that Jake was interested and she wanted to hold back and think about this. Did Lyle want her interfering with his life? Did he still want her? Did she want to interfere? It would mean a relationship with Lyle.

When she was seventeen, being in love had meant giving herself up to Scott, letting him enfold her and take control of her life. What did it mean now?

She could have a baby.

She closed her eyes tightly, feeling stirrings within herself, seeing Lyle bent over her, watching a small child with wispy red hair nursing at her breast.

What kind of a mother would she be? What sort of wife to a man like Lyle? Could she be all the things Hazel hadn’t been for him?

He wanted more than Scott ever had. Lyle wanted a partner. Intimacy.

She and Scott had never really had intimacy. She’d felt warmth and protectiveness from him, but she’d never given him anything more than her adoration. It was all he’d wanted. He hadn’t wanted to know what made her tremble, what made her joyful. And although she’d worshiped him, she’d never seen him as a human man with frailties and fears. She’d thought they had everything.

Lyle wanted more.

Or did he? What if she was reading him wrong? What if he didn’t feel any of the things she thought he felt? It was impossible! If she let him get that close – if she let anyone get that close to her – she’d never be safe again. The thought terrified her!

She booked a charter flight to Montreal. Two days later she canceled it. She made reservations for a flight to Mexico, then inexplicably boarded the ferry to Vancouver Island and went to visit her mother in Campbell River.

She was afraid to run, and afraid to stay. She was terrified of the implications of loving Lyle. The only thing that frightened her more was the thought of never seeing him again.

She stayed for three days, listening to her mother talking about the garden, the neighbors’ children who were turning into hooligans as they grew up, and the weekly bridge club.

On the last day of her visit, her mother said suddenly, “Georgina, I’ve always wanted to tell you how sorry I was that I opposed your marriage to Scott.”

George was peeling potatoes. She stopped the action of the peeler and stared at her mother. “That’s a long time ago.”

Her mother shrugged. She was small, but George had always felt slightly intimidated by her. Now she said, “It kept you away from home for a long time. I missed you. And it was your life. I’d no business trying to live it for you.” She took a deep breath, said, “And I hope you won’t be angry with me now, but I don’t want you to spend your life like this. You were never meant to live alone. I think you should go out and find a man and—” She spread her hands wide, indicating somehow the years of her own widowhood. “You should have a family.”

“Any man?” asked George, smiling, mischief lighting her eyes. “What should I be looking for?”

“Love,” said her mother.

“I’ll think about it,” she promised.

She’d hardly thought about anything else since leaving Green Island. She didn’t mention Lyle, but when she left the next day she promised to return soon.

She went to the north end of Vancouver Island. She visited a second hand book store and picked up an armful of books – everything from Agatha Christie to Georgette Heyer. Then she checked into a small motel and spent two weeks walking the beaches and reading. She felt instinctively that if she could bury herself in the books, vegetate for a while, her subconscious might straighten out her tangled emotions.

One afternoon, in the middle of an Agatha Christie murder, it occurred to her that Lyle loved her. Although he hadn’t actually said the words, it was in every look he gave her. And Lyle’s kind of love was nothing like Scott’s. Scott had wanted her in spite of her wildness. Scott hadn’t loved all of her. He’d loved what he wanted her to be.

Lyle loved the woman who was crazy enough to sail single-handed from Mexico to Alaska at the wrong time of year, the woman who was restless and afraid and prone to argue about anything that seemed to threaten her freedom.

Was she insane? Running from a man who felt like that about her? She called the travel agent and canceled her Mexico reservations. She took a bus and ferry back to Vancouver, arrived at Jenny’s in mid-afternoon when the house was empty. They’d bought a big old house on the North shore, overlooking the water. They kept a spare key in the porch, where George suspected any intelligent burglar could find it.

She was feeling a little less sure of herself by the time she opened the door. If Lyle loved her, surely he knew it was impossible for her to live on a lighthouse. She’d never pretended to like the isolation, but what if he expected her to—

To be someone else. She was George. He had to accept that. If he really loved her, he would accept that.

She opened the door, found a can of Coke in the refrigerator and walked, sipping the cool liquid, into the living room. She was wearing blue jeans and an oversized shirt. She discarded her sandals and went barefoot across the floor.

Her mail was on the mantle, not far from the empty playpen. Her new calling card. A letter from the insurance agent saying that her claim would be delayed while they waited for the coastguard report on her shipwreck.

An envelope addressed to her in childish printing, with Green Island Lighthouse as the return address. A small package with Lyle’s handwriting on it. Not a letter, but another cassette.

Her hands trembled as she pushed it into the tape player. The speaker crackled, then Lyle’s voice was saying gruffly, “This one’s for you, honey.”

The music filled the room. The drums and the bass guitar. Lyle’s voice. ‘
I use my own voice to show the words
,’ he’d once said to her, but this was more than words and music. It was a love song, her love song. She sank down onto the hearth rug, hugging her knees and listening to Lyle’s voice, Lyle’s music, asking her to let him love her.